Moments to Burn
by perfectpro
Summary: Sonny Munroe goes through the disappointment that is life with and without Chad Dylan Cooper.


**1.**

Only people who deserve love get to have it.

What does love mean?

Does love mean you're pretty?

Witty?

Lovely?

Caring?

{you're none of those things; thought you should know}

**2.**

She waits by the phone for hours on end

(He's _years_ too late, it doesn't matter anyways.)

The phone never rings anyways.

&so she drowns her sorrows in chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, soft tissues, and reruns of _7th Heaven_.

**3.**

Tawni tells her that she destroying herself.

"Two years? Sonny, he isn't coming back."

"Shut up, Tawni. Chad Dylan Cooper always keeps his promises."

&they sit down on Tawni's couch drinking glasses of white wine so that it doesn't stain too badly if they spill it.

Neither speaks, and it's for the better somehow.

**4. **

Zora gave her some advice on what to do.

Maybe that's part of what hurts.

She had to take advice on relationships from the youngest member of their cast.

&now, with Zora's advice, she lives like she would if he were right there with her.

(But it's no fun having a candlelit dinner for two when only one person is actually there)

**5.**

She was a sappy teenager with a heart full of hope when she met him.

He was a boy who had some growing up to do.

She loved reading Fairy Tales, and he was the Prince that came with it all.

He didn't know what love meant, but he found out along the way.

**6.**

Her friends told her that he was too immature to be in a committed relationship.

She pointed out that they didn't know him like she did.

**7.**

He loved her. She knew that.

She loved him. He knew that.

Yet somewhere along the way, he forgot his end of the bargain.

**8.**

_If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving_.

She tried it.

Ended up in the hospital for three weeks.

"Tawni, can you not succeed at a relationship?"

"Sonny, one day you'll find out that you can't be perfect."

"I know that."

"Then what do you need help with?"

"You know that saying about sky diving?"

"Yeah."

"I still really think that I'm succeeding in my relationship."

"It's been three years, Sonny. You haven't heard from him in _three years_."

"Could you not remind me for once?"

**9.**

&now he is a big-shot movie star who has never bothered to remember anything about his very first love.

She is a girl with a dream too hopeful to forget hers.

She crosses her fingers every time she sees his face on a magazine.

_Please still love me. Please still love me. Please still love me._

**10.**

Eventually, she stops crossing her fingers.

Somewhere during her job or watching TV, she stops holding her breath at 11:11.

Somewhere along the way, she turned the TV off when his interview came on.

&somewhere along the way, her apartment filled up with used tissues, ice cream cartons, opened and thrown haphazardly DVD boxes, and pictures that are turned face down.

Somewhere along the way, she left the photo albums up on the shelves.

**11.**

But after a while, she missed seeing his face.

So she spent an hour each night going over photo albums.

Tawni spent an hour each night trying to get her best friend to stop crying.

Zora spent an hour each night plotting revenge that never happened.

**12.**

"It'll be okay, Sonny."

"No it won't Zora. It's been seven years. He's _engaged_, for crying out loud!"

"You always look on the brighter side, Sonny."

"What brighter side, Tawni? The fact that he left me with a broken heart? The fact that he never even bothered to break up with me? The fact that he just _forgot_? Oh, I'm sorry, or is the brighter side the fact that it's been _four years_ and I still love him? I'm sorry, Tawni, I'm sorry, Zora, but what brighter side?"

&they don't answer, because they don't have one.

But that's alright, she wasn't expecting one anyway.

**13.**

It's still been four years, and she opens up her mailbox to find an ornate letter with lilac ribbons, and cream colored parchment instead of paper.

It's a wedding invitation to his wedding.

Why would she even want to go to his wedding anyways?

She doesn't, you see.

She doesn'tdoesn'tdoesn'tdoesn't want to go to his wedding at all.

&as she looks at that pretty letter in all of its stationary-like glory, she can't help but wonder what the wedding will be like.

She feels stupid for doing that, so she calls him up and tells him to _please keep the fucking hell out of her life_, except not as nicely as that.

She tries hard not to cry when he hangs up on her instead of saying anything.

Tawni tries not to cry when she sees the invitation in Sonny's garbage can along with a note that said _I'm sorry_ in Chad's chicken-scratch handwriting.

**14.**

Tawni goes to the wedding, just so that when she gets back she can lie and tell Sonny how purely horrifying it was, and how the bride looked _fat_ in her wedding dress, and how they mismatched white and eggshell in the napkins at the reception, and how the food tasted just oh-so-freaking awful, and how the seats always squeaked when you stood up, and how the wedding pictures turned out _ugly_.

She comes back and wishes she didn't have to lie for Sonny, but she does anyways.

(Because that's what friends are for.)

She also spends the night at Sonny's house because what kind of a best friend leaves while the other is sobbing their eyes out?

**15.**

She acts in movies occasionally.

She got a big role in a huge feature-film.

&she sends him the poster of the movie with her face and her co-star's face as the only pictures on it.

The words SONNY MUNROE & JAMES CONROY are large and in your face when you look at the poster, and she can't help but to hope that he remembers their fake date that took place oh-so-long ago.

It's just her sick&twisted way of getting back at him after telling her that she can't act.

He sends her a picture of his six month old firstborn son that looks identical to him.

It's his way of telling her that he never needed her (&she believes it).

She calls Tawni and spends the next two weeks sobbing in agony and pain.

**16.**

They enjoy hurting one another.

It's sick and twisted and awful but they can't help but feel satisfactory after they've seen the tabloids featuring their angry, hurt, sobbing face.

Both of them were made for the spotlight somehow.

But they want the other one to take the background role.

She just wants someone to care.

He just wants her to stop.

**17.**

Tawni tells her that it doesn't matter that he's divorced.

Tawni tries telling her that it doesn't matter that his firstborn and only son died eight months ago at two years old.

Tawni tries to tell her that it's been _seven years_ since she's spoken to him with him saying something back.

Tawni tries to tell her that it doesn't matter that he sent her flowers with a cute little card.

Zora yells at her and asks how a _silly, stupid, clown-like card_ can fix anything?

Sonny doesn't answer, because they wouldn't understand.

Tawni may be able to whisk in and out of relationships while claiming that she's in love with someone, but she never is really.

Zora doesn't date much, so how can she know anything about love?

Sonny knows about love.

(or so she thinks)

She knows that love is screaming at another until you want to rip their hair out but instead of doing that you kiss them, because it really is the only good way to shut someone up.

She knows that love is sending a million worded message through a spilt second look into their eyes.

She knows what love is.

Or does she?

**18.**

She misses the fines and the goods that they would scream at one another.

She wants to call him up and start all over again, but they are bruised and broken and truly beyond anyone else's repair but their own.

So when she sees him standing over by the old Condor Studios building, she just goes over and stands next to him.

They don't say anything at all, but she thinks that he said both some of the most hurtful and some of the nicest things to her during that silence.

Honestly, it's her favorite conversation even though no words were said.

So does she love it _in spite of_ or _because of_ that?

**19.**

They jump back into their lives of knowing one another effortlessly.

No one else understands it but them, and that's just the way they like it.

He pushes her into a lake as they walk past it, and she buys a plate of spaghetti just to dump on his head.

They sing _Beatles_ songs as they ride down the road.

Neither of them quite notice that the song _Yesterday_ describes their lives.

But it doesn't matter, because they are so used to being with one another that nothing else can seem to matter.

She hops into her car just to meet him at a park and climb a tree or two with him.

Because he never got a real childhood, this makes him the absolute best person to be a little kid around because that little kid is just waiting to come out and play.

He calls her just to scream at her for an hour and drop a rose off at her porch five minutes after they've both hung up.

They have been waiting for this for what seems like forever and a day.

&they're trying to make up for lost time.

**20.**

She hugs Tawni and Zora and her wedding day and tells them they've _helped her become a person that she wants to be like_.

She laughs as Tawni catches the bouquet.

She shoves cake into her husbands face on camera and they both laugh until they're crying.

She hugs Selena after Selena's speech at the wedding, because it brought tears to her eyes even though none of the other guests cried.

She snorts into her hand when she sees her first talk show appearance where Tawni does the rubber pencil trick.

Tears are dripping down her face with appreciation and gratitude for her friend when she watches the talk-show Tawni turn off the TV.

Sonny Munroe-Cooper is happier than she has ever felt before on her wedding day as she waves her friends and family good-bye while she rides off to her honeymoon.

**21.**

She is sobbing once again as she sits alone in her living room with used tissues, ice cream cartons, opened and thrown haphazardly DVD boxes, and pictures that are turned face down.

Tawni is consoling her on the couch and Zora is putting in the fifth season of Gilmore Girls for them to watch next.

Flowers have been delivered to the home, and casseroles are on the counter waiting to be cooked, but she honestly doesn't care.

She reaches for another tissue and Tawni strokes her hair.

Sonny Munroe [NOTICE: no longer Cooper] has had the saddest day of her life on her one-year anniversary to her first husband.

**22.**

Chad Dylan Cooper had died earlier that night.

**23.**

Doesn't she deserve love?

**24.**

Only people who deserve love get to have it.

**25.**

What does love mean?

Does love mean you're pretty?

Witty?

Lovely?

Caring?

{you're none of those things; thought you should know}

**26.**

She never did get that Happily-Ever-After she had bargained for.

Instead, she is the queen of comfort food with her ice cream tubs and chocolate stashes that aren't so secret.

She looks at the picture of her with Chad (her first boyfriend) and smiles.

She looks at herself in the mirror and frowns.

**27.**

Oh how the mighty have fallen.


End file.
